Columbus teachers’ union accepts new deal, Columbus students return to classroom Monday

WHIO Staff
·2 min read

The Columbus Education Association voted to accept the contract the union’s bargaining team and Columbus Board of Education agreed to last week, according to our news partner WBNS TV in Columbus.

>>PREVIOUS STORY: Columbus teachers’ union to vote on conceptual agreement Sunday

More than 4,000 union members met Sunday at Huntington Park in Columbus to vote.

During the meeting, union members discussed and reviewed details of the agreement, WBNS reports.

The union’s ratification brings an end to the bargaining process with the Columbus Board of Education and students in Columbus will return to the classrooms Monday after spending their first week of school learning remotely.

Here are what the CEA said are the highlights of the agreement:

  • a contractual guarantee that all student learning areas will be climate controlled no later than the start of the 2025-2026 school year, including installation of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning in buildings currently without HVAC, and in buildings that currently only have partial HVAC;

  • reductions in class size caps in all grade bands, lowering the number of students in every classroom by two over the course of the contract;

  • the first-ever limitations on the numbers of buildings assigned to each elementary art, music and P.E. teachers, with scheduling intended for one specialist per subject area per building;

  • the first-ever contractual limitation on the number of CEA positions that can be outsourced to out-of-town corporations, thereby ensuring that our students are educated by experienced professionals from our local community; and

  • a ground-breaking paid parental leave program for our teachers, as well as salary increases for each of the next three years which will help attract and retain the high-quality educators that our students deserve.

>>PREVIOUS STORY: Columbus school district reaches conceptual agreement with teacher’s union

The Columbus school board is scheduled to hold a special meeting Monday morning at 8 a.m. following the union’s vote, according to WBNS.

The school board and teachers’ union came to the conceptual agreement early Thursday morning after nearly 14 hours of discussions with the oversight of a federal mediator.